Drivers have been caught between the pincers of a pound weakened against the dollar and soaring wholesale prices, both due to stock market speculation, the AA said.

Edmund King, its president, said: "This latest surge in fuel prices and its impact on spending indicates that UK drivers and families can't take any more. We're no longer talking of the motorist as a cash cow for tax and speculator greed, but a horse slowly but surely being flogged to death.

"This is the third 10p-a-litre wholesale price surge in 11 months, given extra vigour by currency speculators betting against the pound."

He called on the Government to scrap the planned rise in fuel duty scheduled for the autumn.

"Given the lashing motoring families and UK businesses are taking from speculator-driven fuel prices, we hope the Chancellor spells out clearly in the forthcoming Budget that he can feel the pressure rocketing fuel price inflation places on families and business, and that he will cancel the September rise if that strain is too great," he said.

In December, George Osborne scrapped a 3p rise in duty due in the New Year and postponed the next inflation-linked increase from April 1 until September 1

Regional variations mean Yorkshire and Humberside and the north of England are currently the cheapest for petrol, at 137.6p a litre, with Northern Ireland the most expensive at 138.7p.

Yorkshire and Humberside also remains the cheapest region for diesel, averaging 144.2p, while East Anglia, Northern Ireland and south-east England are the most expensive, at 145.2p.